Parliamentary Assembly

Amendment 1 | Doc. 13532 | 23 June 2014

In the draft resolution, replace paragraph 8 with the following paragraph:

"The Assembly believes that the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) should play a role in promoting a common and effective application of the legal framework of rescue at sea, as today different approaches still create excessive delays and failures to rescue people in distress at sea. To this end, it recommends that the IMO:

- step up its efforts with a view to elaborating a regional memorandum of understanding on procedures to facilitate the coordination of search and rescue operations and the disembarkation of persons rescued in the Mediterranean Sea;

- promote new consultations for amending and implementing the current legal framework, and in particular the IMO Conventions, with clearer and stricter rules and definitions;

- amend the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) to expressly provide that exemptions generally applying to ships of war and troopships do not apply to Search and Rescue equipment and devices essential to transmitting and receiving distress signals and for communicating during Search and Rescue operations."